Nick's Birthday, Anniversary, Halloween, Another Vegas Trip and Thanksgiving

90 Days ago was my WONDERFUL Husband's Birthday! I wanted to make it special for him since he was turning 25 and it was the 25th!! I did a few weeks of thinking prior and thought ya know what I'm going to try and do a Surprise Party for him.....I put together (with some help from my creative Dad) a saying that went like this:

A Birthday bash is brewin' and you're invited to show, Please don't tell our cowboy Nick, we don't want him to know.
So if you think you can make it here, here's a message to the wise, Make sure you plan to come early, because it's a big surprise!
AND NOW THE KICKER
Nick has alway been a cowboy, looks good when wearin his boots, Count this bash to be a good one, with lots of hollerin' and hoots!

Please come dressed up as outlaws...boots, buckles, celts and hats, We'll have a tasty dinner, there nothin' wrong with that!
So saddle up your ponies, the night that we toast NIck, There's gonna be a ruckus, put on this sweet "CHICK"

DATE Saturday September 25, 2010
TIME 6:30PM
PLACE Campbell Ranch (Shay's Parents)
8134 South 2425 East South Weber, 84405

Please give a YEE HAW to Shaylee
I decided I will NEVER EVER do a surprise party for anyone again....not even my kiddos....sorry kidlets! Well maybe I will for the kids because I'll have my hubbies help! Anyway, they are so hard to plan, do invites, getting RSVP's back, food, but in the end it turned our great! The whole day was surprise for him....he was very confused and I think I put myself in a hole when I kept telling him...oh we're doing this.....oh and we gotta stop here and shoot I have to go into work so come with me. Ha ha, thinking back on it I sounded like a fool. We started off the day with a casual morning, got ready and headed to SLC to "go into work" and then go up to his "private golf lesson in PC" none of which are true but we did end up at the SLC Airport at my Boss's Hangar and his son Rob took us flying in their Cheyenne 4 seater plane. Nick was so surprised and so excited!!! We took off and headed up over Down Town SLC and over the mountains and were headed to Evanston. It was so fun to have an aerial look of the valley, mountains, leafs were changing colors, it was so fun. I got a bit queezy but handled it ok. We came through Weber Canyon on the way home and saw both our parents houses, Nick's 2nd home this summer Valley View Golf Course and headed back down to SLC Airport to land. We had to circle around SLC a few times waiting for our turn to come down. It was neat to see the Univerity Football Field and tailgaters. We made it back down and survived the trip. After our flight we went back home rested and "Started packing for camping" I made Nick pack the whole car with all our camping gear because we were "going camping" we ended up at my parents for a "Tarp" and everyone was there for the BIG SURPRISE! We had a great time, with lots of family and friends!


For our 2nd Anniversary we headed down to St. George. We decided when we got married that we would rotate years on who plans our anniversary celebrations. This was my year to plan, so on top of Nick's Birthday Surprise I had to turn around a week later and plan our anniversary. Let's just say I winged it the whole time and had Nick help with a few things. We didn't do much in St. George, we golfed, sat by the pool, shopped, headed to Vegas for the night to see La Reve and shop some more, it was a PERFECT weekend getaway! Going to Vegas made me have a whole new love for that place. The shopping is AMAZING, the shows are AWESOME and the Restaurants are GREAT! We shopped at the Fashion Show Mall, Mile Mall and the Forum Shops! We ate at Segundo......AMAZING, their Guacamole is to DIE for!! La Reve was amazing and both Nick and I LOVED IT! Happy 2 years Babe!

Halloween is Nick's favorite time of year, he loves to go to Halloween stores, buy all the creepy decorations, dress up, and scare people. We decided this year we were going to be TOY ARMY GUYS from Toy Story. In the beginning we saw some cute costumes at the Halloween store but Nick being the creative one decided we'd first spray paint some outfits to give it a plastic look, but then couldn't find the right colored clothes, so instead we grabbed old clothes and DUCT TAPED over them. We had the pants, coat, gun, bullets, binoculars, canteen, gernade, belt, boots everything, it was so fun but took alot more TIME and Duct Tape then we thought it would take. We turned a picture of us into Duct tape and we'll see what happends. We went to a few Halloween Parties and were basically the hit! Can't forget Witches Night Out at Gardner Village! 2nd annual Sisters/Sister In Laws night out! So much fun!


Some friends of ours decided we better hit the road and take a road trip to Vegas. The boys "needed some golfing time" and the girls needed some "shopping time" so why not head to Vegas! We headed down on a Thursday night, stayed at the Condo in St. G and then in the morning after breakfast with my Sister and Parker we were off to Vegas. We got there checked in, the boys went straight to golf and Kourt and I went straight to the Forum Shops at Ceasars. We had a blast. After Ceasars we went to the Mile Mall at Planet Hollywood. We shopped until our feet were sore! Literally all day! We shopped until the boys were done golfing. We grabbed a bite to eat at Segundo..........AMAZING! And then Kourt and I went back out shopping and the boys found a sports bar to watch the Jazz game! We had such a fun time with them and can't wait for another trip with them soon. Our way home was very interesting. We hit the road about 1 in the afternoon and got all the way to Beaver with no problem until sudden stop and blizzard conditions. We SAT on the freeway and watch an entire movie in a 1.5 mile span. We didn't know if we were going to make it home....for a while the boys were getting stir crazy in the car, all we had to eat was Riesen's, Starbursts, and Sun Flower seeds and let me tell you I will never eat any of those again I was so sick of them, the boys got out of the car and decided to hit golf balls from the freeway out towards the east mountains. It was actually funny and we had some good conversations in the car!! We finally made it to Filmore and didn't have to turn around we made it home but in 12 hours instead of your usual 6 hour drive!




Thanksgiving was more relaxing this year then it has been in the past. We went to Miller's it was only a few of us as most were at their inlaws/girlfriends/out of town/or working. It was nice to relax and enjoy each other's company. We had dinner, hung out, we went over to my Grandparents to say hello and play games and to plan our Black Friday Shopping Adventure. There were a few things Nick and I decided we should get. We almost stayed up late but got the Christmas Tree out instead. We were going to get up early but slept through our alarms. We did make it to the few places we wanted about 8:30 and got everything we wanted! Walmart wasn't bad, Best Buy was kinda crazy but the line went fast, Target was empty and the mall.....well we just went for lunch.

Next post....Christmas and Holiday Festivities!

PS I don't know how to rotate the one Halloween picture sorry!

Sad day :(

Last week Nick and I decided to head to the State Fair after work since we're both working downtown. The night before I made sure I had the camera charged, had it packed in my car ready for some State Fair Fun. Well we get there and were walking around to all the booths, waiting for the sun to go down a little and have all the fair lights on to take some fun pictures, meanwhile we went and saw all the livestock....Pigs, Sheep, Cows, Goats, Chickens, you name it. Nick being the "DETAILED Photographer" he is wanted close ups of the cutest little goats ever. He noticed that as he was taking the pictures, the end result was not what he took the picture of ?!?!??!?!??! So I'm thinking oh great, he's been messing around with the settings, we reset the entire camera and still the pictures were off. Luckily we bought a warranty for a year and are for sure extending it another year or two. We took it into the store the next day and the manager was confused too. (Not a good sign) so we had to have the camera sent in and it will be another 3-4 weeks (AVERAGE) until it's back into our hands. Meanwhile it's getting to be FALL...I love fall and the leaves changing colors and no pictures :( Nick's birthday is this Saturday and wanted pictures of the day :( I wanted my neighbor to take our pictures for an updated Nick and Shay Family picture and now that's not going to happen :( Ahhh I'm so bummed and hope it doesn't take the average 3-4 weeks for my camera to come back. Hopefully it's back in time for SOME Fall pictures.......Fall Family Pictures.....New house update.......and HALLOWEEN! Come back Camera!

It's my BiRtHDaY Weekend!

For any of you that truly know me my BIRTHDAY is my favorite holiday! I just love love love it! I don't know if it's because it's always a 4 day weekend and I get an extra day off or what but it always turns out to be the best ever! This year I started my birthday list about the end of July and got a lot of crap for it. I typed it up this year and even included pictures! Nick was slightly embarrassed for me as I would whip it out anytime anyone asked what I wanted. My parents and Nick both think I'm the strangest person when it comes to Birthdays because they just don't care, or in their words "it's just another day" but what I think is this "it's the day you were born, you have to celebrate, why not!" So anyways this year I went to work in the morning and my boss told me I could leave at lunch and go have fun so I did, I took him up on it and was off at 1:00. I met my mom in SLC and we went up to Swiss Days in Midway and got to enjoy some shopping boutique style! We ran into quite a few people we knew up there and this year it seemed even bigger then last year. I took Nick up there last year as we were in Park City having fun on the Coster, and Ziplines and told him that I wanted to go over to Swiss Days and he was totally stoked, thinking ah Swiss Days must be Swiss Stuff, Swiss People, Swiss everything else...we got there and he got out of the shuttle and said "are you kidding me?!?!?" "this is more like Relief Society Craft Days what am I doing up here you tricked me!" anyways this year it was just my mom and I and we had alot of fun. The booths went into the neighborhoods, instead of just the park! We ended up finding the cutest booth that had the best deals and ended up getting some jewelry for really cheap! After Swiss Days we headed back down the canyon, grabbed a quick late lunch and met Nick back in SLC after he got off work. Nick and I ended up getting a hotel downtown and got to our room and both crashed! We took a 3 hour nap! We woke up and headed over to The Gateway for some shopping and food! After all that we went back to the hotel and decided to run down to the amazing pool and hot tubs so we did that til late and then watched a movie and went to bed.

In the morning, we went downstairs to breakfast to find out that the Farmers Market was just across the street and headed over there to wonder around. It was alot of fun just looking at all the amazing fruits and veggies, breads and pastries and arts and crafts they had out. After that we went back to The Gateway to finish up shopping and get Nick's brother a Birthday present. It was such a fun day and night! Saturday we had some friends over to watch the football games.

Sunday we slept in late and had a family party at the Miller's house for Aug and Sept Birthday! Before the party we went out to West Layton and took the miles loop along the Nature Boardwalk. It was so much fun and so beautiful out there. At the party I go got a cookbook that I've been wanting, tickets to The Lion King for September 24th! A yummy Cupcake and the CUTEST Wallet/Clutch, or and Gift Card to Nordstroms!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Miller side!


Monday we went Golfing at Glen Eagle, and afterwards hiked Adam's Canyon with our neighbors!






It was a great weekend to celebrate! But don't worry the party isn't over yet! More celebrations to come this weekend! Yay!!

PS Nick's Birthday is September 25th!

August Update

So my new Goal is to update my blog monthly....instead of every 4-5 months....So let the new goal being now!

I can't remember much of what happened in August but I do remember a few things. My mom's birthday was on the 2nd, and for her birthday my dad added some beadboard in the office and painted the top 1/3 a mustardy yellow...I told her she needed to be wild and change things up from her all white house...she's getting better and every time we do update and paint she loves it, so we have 4 more rooms and the house will look so much better...and add alot of color! I took my mom to Tai Pan and had alot of fun shopping with her. I think what we got ended up being perfect for her new office look! (Pictures maybe next month!)

We did South Weber Days: Adult Anything Goes again...this year our team was a little mixed up. Whitney just had a baby so couldn't do it but her husband wanted too still so my sister stepped in, in her spot. Ryan wanted to do it again and now that Kylee is married we had to figure out a new teammate. I wanted to set up try outs but that didn't work, instead Ryan had one of his girlfriends Marie step in and be on our team, she did pretty good too! We had alot of fun and still came in middle place! Some of the activities were: balance your team of 6 in a canoe while standing up and not touch anyone, sling shot (yeah we sucked at it), pushing an old jeep in a figure 8 and stopping on the line, army obstacle course ect. It was a blast!


Nick had the opportunity to take some time off from the Jazz and go do a 2 week blitz in Hawaii for a Summer Sales group....yup you heard me Hawaii....and I was here in Utah...doesn't seem fair right, well the first week I was super busy with weekly plans I made prior to him leaving so I wouldn't pull my hair out. I went shopping with my neighbor Danielle, caught up on all my TV shows, spent a little money on household items to fix up the house, finished some projects, spent the night at my amazing sister in laws house, and mooched off my parents a little. The second week I was able to go to St. George to help my sister move into her new apartment and get her ready for college...I still can't believe she's old enough! I was still jealous Nick was in Hawaii another week but he kept telling me that Hawaii and St. George are close to the same place.......(NOT) St. George was perfect though....hot just how I like it. I sat at the pool and did absolutely nothing but lay out and went shopping (my kind of vacation) Nick ended up doing really well in Hawaii and we don't have any regrets that he went (except that he was gone away from me for 2 weeks and 2 days and I didn't get to go to his cousin's wedding over there) Nick is an amazing husband and I couldn't ask for a better one, he's such a hard worker and always providing for our little family.

Work has been CrAzY....and I mean crazy, we've been so busy that by the time I get home I'm pooped and all I do it sit on the couch, ok maybe cook a little dinner. Speaking of dinner I'm in this amazing group called Freezer Meal Friends and it has been a lifesaver to my wallet and my health. we do is depending on how many girls can come that month we make that many meals (1 meal, same recipe) x (# of girls)= # of girls different meals....I think that is the right equation. It's been great, yummy meals and lots of new recipes! I've been in the group for now 2 months and next week will be my 3rd month and there have been some delicious meals!


We went camping with our neighbors the last weekend of August and had a BLAST! We woke up early Saturday morning and they had breakfast ready for us and then we were off and headed to Lava Hot Springs! We got up there and hurried and set up camp and right as we finished it started to sprinkle on us so we decided to run up to the hot springs and hang out there while the storm passed. By the time we changed and got up there we were in a DOWNPOUR and I mean it was raining buckets!After the down pour it cleared up so we headed over to the waterpark and had a great couple hours of water slides, platform jumping, flips, and handstands, oh and a water rock wall! After swimming for awhile we were starving so we headed over to the cafe and had a hamburger and fries. We decided to just hang out and have a fire after walking around to the shops....if you can even call them shops, more like RANDOM, hippie, palm reading, swords, belly shirts, and colored aura pictures!We had our fire and hung out and laughed a bunch, later we went back up to the hot springs for a relaxing night. I really don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life! One of the greatest camping trips I've ever been on.




I think that's pretty much all for August. Oh wait school did start so Nick is no longer fun to hang out with...instead he's buried in 4 inch thick books! Next up....September....yay for BIRTHDAYS!!!

Get Comfy....

First off before I even start I'm just going to apologize for the MIA I've been in the blogging world....and am going to "try" and get better at this. Where to even begin........so I ended my last entry talking about February and March, well that was 5 months ago and so much has happend. I'll give a quick updated of each month and hope the rest of the year I can stay up to date instead of 5 month long updates. Here goes nothing.

March-
My cousin Camie married Jeff and we were able to go to the temple with her in Draper and then watch the wedding ceremony a few days later in the Salt Lake Temple. I was a beautiful wedding and a great reception.

I totalled my car Cobalt on the freeway mid March. I hit a ladder that fell out of someone's truck, I tried to swirve out of the way but hit the ladder, spun out, overcorrected and hit the cement wall. I was ok, a little shaken up is all and came away with a $210.00 ticket. I'm in the process of fighting the ticket and have my sister in law and brother in law who are lawyers are helping me fight this but it's been kind of a long process. I went to my first court date and the prosecuter wasn't there so that was lame, and my second date is this week July 15th but my sister in law is having her baby that day and so we're now waiting to hear our next date. I did get a new car and I love it but I miss my old one! Don't worry Nick and I have ALMOST matching cars. We both drive Honda Accords but mine it a little nicer, I have leather seats, heated bums, and mine is faster! Nick now wants to sell his car so we don't have matching cars...so if anyone is interested please let us know!

April-
We went to alot of Jazz games,
between Nick working for the Jazz in Inside Ticket Sales and my boss having Season Tickets we were able to go to alot of games. We took my Grandpa Toone to a game when we got to sit in a Suit. He loved it and it was his first Jazz game he's been too. We've been to games with friends, family and co workers. We love to go to the games and every game we went to they won!! Hopefully next season we can go to just as many if not more game!

May-
We've had lots of family get togethers and love getting together with family. Nicks family is fun because they have little one and just watching the kids and listening to the funny things they say are the best! We miss having our other 3 neices and nephew around but they live in Boston and hopefully soon will move back.

Nick's brother McKay got married to Scotti this month and what a great wedding it was. Congrats to Mac, Scotti and Chloe, we wish you the best!

I took my sister's senior pictures for her! They actually turned out great. We did them in 3 days. The first day to was to check out lighting and that and the second day went one for 4 hours! took a MILLION pictures but they turned out awesome! Here are her two final collages she sent out!




We went to St. George with some friends in May. It was perfect weather not too HOT and not cold at all. We swam, Hiked and did a little bit of shopping.
We went over to Zion's and did Weeping Rock, The River Walk, and the big one for the day ANGELS Landing. The hike it's self wasn't too bad but when you started to have to use chains.....I wasn't digging that! But the whole time Nick was so supportive and went slow with me and encouraged me to finish! I did finish and am so glad! It was beautiful, and the view was unbelievable!
We also went and did Red Rock one evening and it was so fun! Red Rock is more of a walk through the Canyon. There are a few parts where you can get in the water and slide off the slick rocks. Nick was the only one that dared to to it!

June-
We've been to the cabin alot this summer which has been fun. We went 3 weekends in a row and it's so nice up there.

June was especially busy, Kristen Graduating High School, Nick running in the Ragnar:Wastach Back, and my dad turning 50 I cant' believe my baby sister is graduated and heading off to Collage next month. I swear it was yesterday when I was at graduation! It was a great day up at Weber State. It was HOT like usual and the ceremony was great. We went to lunch after and had a great time with family. Congrats Kristen and Good Luck at Dixie!
Nick was crazy enough to run in the Ragnar this year with some of my family. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself in but he did great! He beat his estimated times and had a great attitude the whole time!II dont know how happy I would of been to be running 3 different legs during a 24 hour time, no showering, no sleep really since your in the van the whole time besides when your running. But he did it! Congrats to him and team "WHAT THE HILL!"

Well it's not mid July and I'm going to try and keep this updated as much as possible! So far this summer has been great!

Update!

I'm definitely not greatest at this whole blog thing and I know I've said that in the past but I''m trying to get better, get better at blogging and updating, adding pictures, and taking pictures so that is my goal.
For Valentines we kept it low key, we went to lunch with the Miller side and then headed to the annual Boat Show at the South Town Expo Center. We can NEVER miss the boat show, it's Nick's favorite thing to do! After the show we were so tired we came home and took a nice nap and then went out to dinner later to Holy Smokes. It's a yummy BBQ joint in Layton and lately we've been addicted!! Nick got me Flowers and a HUGE heart balloon! So cute, I love him!
A few weekends ago we went to dinner with our friends Josh and Kenzi and actually ended up in Wendover...yup you heard me, WENDOVER NEVADA. WHAT?!?!? The boys kept talking about it at dinner and Kenzi and I were like, no way we are going to Wendover, we were both tired and wanted to go back home and watch a movie and keep it low key, but that didn't happen. We hoped in Josh's mini to go get "ICE CREAM" and ended up in WalMart in SLC, to pick up toiletries and swim suits for our trip. Don't worry here are the items we picked up:
1 Travel Toothpaste
4 pack of Toothbrushes
1 Travel Shaving cream
4 Travel Shick razors
1 giant Sugar Free Rockstar
$3.00 little boy basketball shorts XL for Nick
$3.00 black mini shorts
$7.00 cone shaped sports bras
Let's just say what we were going to wear for the pool...not cool! Kenzi and I had to crash on the way out to Wendover but Nick and Josh were too busy chatting away about life that it was hard to sleep oh and we were in a Mini (did I mention that?) We got to Wendover and ended up having a blast! Nick and I started with $20 each and Nick lost his pretty fast, I on the other hand was up like $40 bucks! I've never really gambled before and now I'm hooked! Ha ha not really but it was a blast, we went dancing with some weirdos, watch/played BlackJack and finally went to the hotel to get some sleep. We went to go maybe get some breakfast but I was so hooked on playing Blackjack again we played at 11:00 in the morning...who does that? We had a great time, Thanks Josh and Kenzi..mainly Josh for kidnapping us!
Last weekend I was able to go to Cali to see my sister compete in the West Coast UCA Cheer Comp. It was so much fun, I got there Friday and laid by the pool and napped, Saturday was the Competition at Universal Studios...they WON!! Congrats to them! Sunday we went to Six Flags...oh my gosh it was so much, Nick was so jealous I was there and he wasn't. But can you believe my mom and dad went on all the RIDES! Whoa! It was so much fun! Thanks Nick for letting me go on this little Vacation! Well that's all for now. Check back in a few weeks hopefully I'll have some new stuff up!

14 Weeks Later!

Well if you go back to the beginning of my blogging you can see I'm not very good at updating our blog. New Years Resolution...more blogging!!! It was a great Holiday Season for Nick and I. Lots of family, friends and alone time. We had a Happy Halloween, a great Thanksgiving, a very Merry Christmas and a Fun New Years. Here's what we've been up too.

Halloween...this year I started a tradition I hope to keep alive. I went with my 2 sister in laws and Meagan's friend to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village. I hope next year we can add my mom and sister and a new sister in law. We had a great time dressing up and having a girls night.

For the last couple years Nick and I go to Trevor's Halloween Party in SLC...this year was so much fun...we all had similar costumes, we went with a animal theme. Nick and I were a Monkey and Banana and Kenzi and Trevor were a skunk and a chicken. It was a blast and we loved dancing the night away!

For Thanksgiving my parents hosted it at their house. It was the first time in a long time we had the entire Toone side there...anuts, uncles, cousins, fiances, and a new neice! We also made it to Nicks parents house for another delicious meal! We went to the movies later that night and saw Blideside...what a great movie, I can't wait until it comes out on DVD..I will definately purchase that one!

We attended lots of Ugly Sweater Christmas Parties during December and had fun with White Elephant gifts too...we framed this picture as one of our gifts, if you want a copy I do have plenty so let me know...this may also be our Christmas Card next year we sent out!

We had Christmas morning with my parents and then later went back to Nicks parents to hang out with the family. We had such a good Christmas, everyone spoiled us!! We got clothes, house stuff, and my most favorite part....NEW Digital SLR Camera!! I'm so excited to get started with Photography...pictures and post to come!




For New Years we did our Annual Midnight Ski night up at Wolf Mountain. This is our 2nd year doing this and it was so much fun. I'm not going to lie I wasn't too hip on going just because it had been so cold that week and I kinda wanted to get dressed up and do something on the town, but I did give in because it had just snowed so good snow and a few friends decided to go too. It ended up being a great night on the slopes, perfect weather and great way to end the year! Happy 2010 everyone!!!!